Provoking War

[Stuie]

You get some benefit when the AI declares the war (as opposed to you being the aggressor), but this still won't be enough to counter war weariness if you have lots of foreign troops on your soil, massive losses suffered by your troops, or you're losing cities.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Stuie
You get some benefit when the AI declares the war (as opposed to you being the aggressor), but this still won't be enough to counter war weariness if you have lots of foreign troops on your soil, massive losses suffered by your troops, or you're losing cities.

So, if you lose troops in the field or defending newly-captured cities, this contributes to unhappiness?

That would explain a lot, because man, it's been a real meat grinder "getting my war on," and my instructure development is way behind for where it normally is at this time in my game.

Why my cavalry have turned out to be so ineffective as opposed to their normal use is a topic for another thread, I suppose, unless unhappiness effects the ability of your troops?

[Stuie]

Even capturing a city, and then losing it right away will effect war weariness. This happened to me once; I was fighting a decent war, making steady gains, my population was happy. Then I captured a city but was only able to get one unit (the one that won) in to garrison the city. Needless to say I lost that city immediately to an enemy counter offensive, and then half my empire went into disorder. Bah.

I've found that by having as many luxuries as possible and marketplaces in all your cities, as long as you make steady gains during the course of a war there never should be an issue with war weariness (this on Monarch level; your mileage may vary at Emporer or Diety).

Also, war weariness/unhappiness should not have any effect on the fighting capability of your military. Sounds like you got unlucky with your cavalry?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I would say so. My Cavalry, though all veterans, consistently have lost out to medival infantry, impis, etc. It's humiliating. I don't understand it at all. They can't seem to take out other cavalry on plains, etc.

But I suppose that's not the point of the thread. Anyone else have any enemy attitude/reputation stories or insights they'd care to share?